Resentment and Acceptance
by likeit
Summary: Alex's POV of what she's been going through. For a LONG time.


Timeline: Sometime right after Purgatory

POV: Alex

Disclaimer: I don't own them. Never will. Wouldn't want to. Too much pressure.

Resentment and Accpetance

Alexandra Eames never considered herself a _resentful_ kind of person. She liked to think that she was instead an _accepting_ type of person. Growing up, Alex never _resented_ the fact that her father would spend hours talking to her brothers about cars and sports while relegating her in his mind as his "little lexie girl", a girly girl like her sisters to be treated as such. She learned to appreciate the time that her father would spend with her and knew, somehow, that one day she would show him she could be as tough as her brothers. She _accepted_ that this was the way things were in her house and moved on.

In her marriage to Joe, she didn't _resent_ it when he was promoted first (despite the equal time they spent on the force) and she didn't _resent _it when he chose to spend every Thursday night and Sunday with his buddies. Some of her friends couldn't understand it. But she did. She just _accepted_ that this was the way it was. And it suited her just fine.

Believe it or not, she didn't even really _resent_ it when Joe was killed and she became a widow at thirty-three. She cried, she was angry, she was million other things, but she wasn't _resentful_. He was a cop. She knew what that entailed, and she _accepted_ it.

There _was_ one time Alex came close to being resentful, she thought. When she carried her nephew within her for nine months, and then had to relinquish him immediately to her sister right away. She watched her sister and and brother-in-law carry him out of the hospital, back home, to their life, and she felt a twinge of resentment. But then. Not really resentment, more like, emptiness. But it was as it was meant to be, and even then, she _accpeted_ her place as his Aunt, and moved on from there.

But now, now Alex felt nothing but _resentment_. And this was very new and disturbing feeling for her. She _resented _the way she continuously backed up her partner throughout the years, without so much as a "thank you". She _resented_ his continued rebuffs to her inquiry's into his personal life. She _resented _that fact that he had come to expect her to be there for him, no matter what, without so much as an explanation. She _resented_ having to be the go-between between Bobby and the Captain. All the time. Everyday. She _resented _the fact that Bobby Goren has shown little interest in her. As a person, and not just a partner. When she really thought about it, she _resented_ that in all these years, it never once occurred to him to ask her what was going on her life, was she happy, did she have a bad day? Even when she was kidnapped, and almost killed, it was Alex who had to console Bobby. Really. She had to spend much of her time convincing him it wasn't his fault. Easing his guilt. No. It was all about him. Always. And she _resented_ the hell out of it.

The Tate's thing, the suspension, and especially the aftermath, well , that's it. It had been five months of working with this temporary partner or that, having to do mounds of Bobby's unfinished paperwork, and basically being relegated to boring, bottom of the barrel cases. Then he comes back, all her worrying, all her hurt feelings, finding out he was undercover and the best he could muster up to say was "Eames, I'm sorry." Hell yeah, she was _resentful._

But she came to a decision. She' done. Being resentful takes a lot out a person, and she can't take one more minute of this feeling. So the next morning she comes in before the sun rises and retypes that letter she wrote so many years ago and places it on Ross's desk. Then she walked away waiting for some kind of peace to come upon her.

But even after, she worries. In the end, what will Bobby say? What will he do? Will anyone else be able to stabalize him, keep him check? And she laughed at the irony within herself. Because she thought this decision would make her feel better. Make her _resentment_ go away. But it hasn't. And now she_ resents _having made that decision at all. He'll move on, work with a new partner, (or many) and she'll be stuck trying to build a brand new partnership with someone else, work hard at getting to know them. She's not up for that kind of work, again. And she can feel that feeling start to grow again...and she _resents_ it.


End file.
